10 Months

Today Isaac is 10 months old. The 18^th of each month is always a little bit surprising since we’re convinced we just brought him home from the hospital. Still, he’s definitely turning into quite the big kid, hitting milestone after milestone. He now waves hello and (after the person he’d waving at is out of sight) sometimes goodbye. Peek-a-boo is pretty old hat, and clapping is so mid-November. Two weeks ago, he learned to pull himself up to standing, and that’s pretty much all he does now. He’ll pull himself up on anything that will hold him, and often attempts to pull himself up on things that won’t. While he’s now able to hold himself up for long periods of time, motor slowly along the edge of whatever he’s holding on to, and balance himself with just one hand while grabbing whatever is within his reach with the other, he hasn’t yet mastered the art of sitting down. What he prefers is to freefall back into whoever is serving as spotter at the moment. Sometimes we’re ready for him, and sometimes we aren’t. Almost as nerve racking is his habit of attempting to scale along the wall when he reaches the edge of a piece of furniture. While all this climbing has been somewhat scary for his mom, he’s getting steadier on his feet everyday, and he’s probably only fallen on his head and/or nose about 37 times so far (*sigh*). Last week his first tooth finally broke through. Picture the four top front teeth. His first tooth is the right most of those four. Not the most conventional of first teeth, but Isaac isn’t the most conventional guy. It looks like he probably won’t learn to do a conventional crawl either, but he has perfected a combination of army crawl/scoot that can only be described as that classic breakdance move The Worm.

Two weeks ago at his 9-month Well Child visit, he weighed 23lbs 4oz and was 29¾ inches tall. He’s slowed down a little on the growth chart, dropping from the 90s to the 80s in percentiles for height and weight. The circumference of his head, however, is still in the 95^th percentile. Maybe he’s a genius. Maybe a very thick skull is what has allowed him to bounce back so quickly from all the spills he’s been taking since he learned to climb. His favorite song is still “Little Bunny Foo Foo” but his new favorite book is 10 Little Fingers and 10 Little Toes, which features watercolor paintings of babies on every page. Babbling is another quickly expanding skill. His vocabulary includes “Mama,” sometimes with purpose and sometimes without, as well as “Dada,” and something that sounds a lot like “Heyyyyy” or sometimes “Yayyy.” We call him Bubba (much to Grandma Anne and Grandpa Gene’s dismay) and around Christmas time he was also saying “Bubba.” On Christmas Eve, in a very tired moment, he even looked up at me and in the saddest voice said, “Bubba Mama.” And because he’s Bubba and I’m his Mama, I think I’ll call that his first sentence.

Wild Man:
I don't usually style Ike's hair this way. In fact, I don't usually style his hair at all, but I'd put some lotion on his scalp and couldn't resist. His hair does stand straight up on its own. I just gave it some direction.

Until recently, Isaac refused to sit in the shopping cart. This is the first day he agreed and it turns out he loves to sit in the shopping cart. Go figure.

Naptime.

Climbing the TV stand--his new favorite activity.

First Christmas

Isaac's first Christmas included excitement here at home and at his Grandma Anne and Grandpa Gene's house in a very chilly Nebraska. The festivities started with his first Santa Clause encounter. Most Tuesdays we attend a story hour for the three and under set at the local library (cleverly named "Book Babies"). Santa visited Book Babies in mid December, reading us all a story then kindly having his picture taken with about 40 book babies, approximately 1/3 of whom were more than a little bit scared. While Santa read us The Night Before Christmas, Isaac kept his arm tightly around my neck, but by the time the line to meet Santa had dwindled down to the last few kids, Isaac seemed ready to try out his lap. While not exactly exuberant about the experience, he did at least find Santa interesting.

"Are you sure about this one, Mom?"

Next was his first Christmas present, a package from Grandma Jenny. Isaac would like Grandma Jenny to know that he misses her lots and lots and can't wait to see her in Arizona in February. The weather is very cold here, and he hopes the sun is shining at her house.

Opening his package from Grandma Jenny, Anthony, and Vanessa

Christmas in Nebraska, which lasted from 12/21 -12/28, included lots of time with Grandma and Grandpa, and a ridiculously fun weekend with Uncle Justin and his girlfriend Becca. The beginning of our week was pretty quiet, with Isaac spending a lot of time happily pulling the books off the bottom shelf of Grandma's bookcase, exploring at Grandma's office, and going for coffee with Grandpa and his buddies at the local cafe. By the end of Christmas Day, however, he was so overly-amped I had to take him downstairs at 11:30pm to prove to him that nothing exciting was happening without him. His sleep schedule (and with Isaac I always use the term "schedule" pretty loosely anyway) didn't recover for about a week. I don't have any pictures of Christmas morning to post yet (but I'll get some some soon, I promise). For now just know that there was lots of paper (and Isaac LOVES paper), a giant--and already much loved--copy of Goodnight, Gorilla, and some very exciting bilingual maracas (exciting enough to distract him from all the paper--and Isaac LOVES paper).

Tolerating our near-constant need to dress him up and take his photo